Crude petroleum and petrochemical product prices are staying high as never before, he emphatically added.
The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries raised oil quotas on three occasions since the year's start-by a daily million barrels, April 1; by another two million, July 1; and by 500,000 barrels, August 1. Neither helped to reduce petroleum prices, sighed our interviewee.
He largely ascribes skyrocketing petroleum, fuel and lubricant prices to extreme instability in Iraq. Though outside OPEC quota arrangements, that country retains prominence in corporate exports. As another reason, the expert highlighted exchange speculators-they use the situation to line their pockets at the expense of petroleum exporting and importing nations alike. Last but not least comes the stance of certain large petroleum extracting countries outside the OPEC. Led by Norway and Russia, those countries have turned a deaf ear to appeals from the OPEC top to increase oil exports.
Our informant does not rule out an upcoming 132nd OPEC conference, which is gathering in Vienna, September 15, to raise petroleum extraction and crude oil export quotas by another daily 500,000 to a million barrels. The rise may calm down energy markets worldwide, and somewhat reduce petroleum-related fuel prices, he hopes.
